Ashley Smith inquest: Federal lawyers agree to co-operate

Federal lawyers are abandoning their efforts to restrict the scope of the inquest into the death of teen inmate Ashley Smith.

The screening this week of one disturbing video that shows guards duct-taping Smith and drugging her against her will prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to criticize correctional authorities for unacceptable behaviour.

By:Diana ZlomislicStaff Reporter, Published on Fri Nov 02 2012

Federal lawyers are abandoning their efforts to restrict the scope of the inquest into the death of teen inmate Ashley Smith.

After more than two years of legal wrangling over how much of Smith’s tragic life in custody would be open to public scrutiny, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has ordered the team of lawyers representing the prison service to “co-operate” with the inquest.

“For the first time, the weight of public opinion is having an effect on this government,” said the Smith family’s lawyer, Julian Falconer. “That means there is the prospect for change. This is an important win.”

Smith, 19, died five years ago after strangling herself with a piece of cloth inside her solitary confinement cell at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener. In the previous 11 months, she was punted 17 times between institutions across the country, isolated throughout that period in a windowless segregation cell wearing little more than a padded suicide gown.

Smith’s parents, Coralee Smith and Herb Gorber who live in Moncton, N.B., thanked Canadians for their support and concern, and for “shaming the government to do the right thing.”

“I think about Ashley every day,” Smith said. “As a family, we made a very hard decision, one that no family should have to make. We decided that the Canadian public must see what happened to our daughter, so that this can never be allowed to happen again.”

Smith is referring to consenting to the release of all materials related to her daughter’s treatment in custody, including disturbing prison surveillance videos.

The videos, which aired publicly for the first time in a Toronto coroner’s court on Wednesday, show prison guards duct-taping Smith to an airplane seat during an institutional transfer between Saskatoon and Montreal. Her head is encased in a black mesh and canvas hood.

Additional footage from Joliette prison in Quebec shows no fewer than seven officers and nurses in gas masks, visored helmets and hazmat-like suits pinning Smith to a metal gurney as the docile teen is forcibly injected with a series of anti-psychotic drugs. At one point, guards are shown climbing on top of the young woman’s shins while others press a clear plastic riot shield to her stomach.

The government had earlier fought the release of these videos but dropped the case when a Divisional Court judge told its lawyers their argument was meritless.

Around 5 p.m. Friday, Correctional Service lawyer Nancy Noble notified Falconer and other lawyers participating at the inquest of the government’s decision to back down.

“Canada is withdrawing its submissions regarding the scope of the inquest and the issuance of out-of-province summonses.”

Earlier in the week, Noble argued that presiding coroner Dr. John Carlisle was reaching beyond his jurisdictional authority in seeking to examine the circumstances of Smith’s entire 11 months in custody. The government and a group of out-of-province doctors backed by a medical malpractice insurer said the coroner does not have the constitutional right to look at any aspect of Smith’s life outside Ontario.

Noble suggested the coroner should dramatically narrow the inquest’s scope to examine only the final seven days of her life in custody.

Anything more, said Noble, would turn the inquest into a “full-blown inquiry into the operations and management of Correctional Service Canada, which is not permitted.”

Lawyer Mark Freiman accused the Smith family and its supporters of using the inquest to mount a “political crusade.” Freiman represents doctors Carolyn Rogers, Loys Ligate, Sam Swaminath and three other out-of-province physicians who treated Smith in custody but are not named.

The family, supported by lawyers representing half a dozen other parties including the prison guards’ union, the provincial children’s advocate and the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, called the argument absurd.

The treatment Smith received across the system, the prison service’s “grotesque use of secure isolation,” the family says, played a role in her deteriorating mental health and, ultimately, her death.

This is the second inquest into Smith’s death. The first was derailed when the presiding coroner retired after lengthy legal battles.

Lawyers return to coroner’s court Nov. 13 when the doctors’ group will present its motion to narrow the witness list.

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